How to Overcome Digital Distractions

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How to Overcome Digital Distractions

Your phone is there. On the desk, or in your pocket. The pull to check it is constant, because it can take away boredom and deliver a small pleasure in an instant. For a lot of us it has become the way we escape any uncomfortable feeling the moment it arrives.

Why pay attention to a dull lecture or Zoom meeting when you can see what’s new on Instagram? But the more you scroll, the worse the inner feeling of dissatisfaction becomes. And it is not only the phone. We have the same problem on our computers while working: endless novelty and stimulation a few seconds away, which is a real hindrance to getting anything done. You sit down to start the day’s work and find yourself checking email, scrolling a feed, and doing anything but the work, telling yourself you will just check one more thing. The longer you put it off, the less appealing the work looks and the harder it is to dive in.

Before you know it a couple of hours have passed, and all you have done is check your bank account, your social media and your inbox a few more times than necessary. If this is you, you are not alone. And it doesn’t stop at work. After hours you check your phone to reply to a message and plan a meetup, and what should have taken five minutes takes an hour or two as you get lost in the apps and the entertainment they serve up.

So, how do we overcome digital distractions?

The first version of this post was written by Havard Mela, a coach and digital minimalist who spent years distracting himself with video games, social media, movies and porn before he regained control. The steps below are the ones that worked for him, updated with what we have learned from FocusMe users since.

1. What impairs your focus the most?

Write down the things you believe impair your focus the most and stimulate you the most without any real benefit. Which digital activities, or offline ones for that matter, could you drop without losing anything that matters?

2. Last week’s screen time

How much time did you spend on your smartphone last week? Your phone’s settings will tell you (Screen Time on an iPhone, Digital Wellbeing on Android).

Write that number down. Then estimate how much time you spend on your computer or tablet for personal matters, and add the two together. That is your total time online outside work.

It is probably higher than you want it to be. Most of us are not willing to change until we see our situation plainly, in numbers.

3. Turn off as many notifications as possible

Turn off everything except urgent alerts, so that when you pick up your phone the screen is usually blank. You don’t need your apps telling you to open them. Turn off vibrate for most things too. The more notifications you get, the harder it is to leave the phone alone. It is as simple as that.

Every notification is a small promise of a reward, and your brain learns to go looking for it. Before long you are checking the phone every ten minutes without ever deciding to.

So turn off notifications on everything that is not necessary. Keep phone calls and messages, and check social media at a time you schedule for it. It is better to do things on your own schedule than on the one Silicon Valley is trying to impose on you.

Read this article to learn more about how to unplug and relax when you are too busy with work.

4. Buy an alarm clock and put your phone in a different room while you sleep

This one makes a surprising difference. It is extremely common to be on the phone right up to sleep and to reach for it the moment you wake. With the phone in another room you cannot scroll or watch videos in bed. You will have to be there with your own thoughts, a book, or your partner. You may well fall asleep a lot earlier than usual, too.

Make it a habit and you get more and better sleep, because the hour of scrolling in bed that used to disappear every night comes back to you.

5. Simplify your digital life

Remove every app you don’t need from your phone. Do you really need ten different social apps? What about YouTube and Netflix? If you want to relax with a film, isn’t it better to do that at home on a bigger screen and do it properly? The less we rely on the phone for our daily tasks, the better. The problem is not looking up a good restaurant. It is the mindless scrolling we do afterwards, which gets far easier the more apps there are to scroll. Delete the ones you don’t need.

6. Use FocusMe

FocusMe blocks the websites and apps you choose, on your computer and your phone, on a schedule or a timer, so the decision is made once rather than fifty times a day. For the days when a rule has to hold, Enforced Mode means the plan runs to its end; while it runs it cannot be stopped or weakened, only made stricter. It works on Windows, Mac, Linux, Android and iPhone.

7. Decide how you will be reachable

Ryan Holiday, the author of The Daily Stoic, limits himself to three ways to contact him: email, texts and phone calls. That is all he needs for business, friends and family. Given the volume of requests he gets as a busy author, entrepreneur and family man, he has to be deliberate about it. But there is a lesson in it for everyone.

Unless you limit how people can reach you, you end up with email, texts, phone calls, Instagram DMs, WhatsApp, Telegram, TikTok, Snapchat, Messenger, Slack and who knows what else. If you feel the need to check a dozen apps several times a day, you will be overwhelmed, distracted and miserable.

There is no way to keep up with it all without living in a frantic blur of digital distractions, unable to focus deeply or get into the flow of your work and your life. Many people feel bad if they haven’t checked every app, worried they answered too late or missed something. Cutting the number of ways you can be reached removes that worry at the source.

8. Find your long-term replacement activities

For Havard, reading and writing became the replacement activities. It was in the stillness of disconnecting from social media, YouTube and the rest that he found the time and energy for them.

What do you want to spend more time on? Maybe you play the guitar and want to take your skill to the next level. Perhaps you want to start a business but feel you don’t have the time. Whatever it is, deciding what you want more time for makes it far easier to give up the things that were eating it.

It gets easier

The more you check social media, email and your favorite news site, the harder you will find it to do hard work and commit to what you care about. When you cut the constant digital distractions, your baseline level of stimulation drops, and working toward your goals gets a great deal easier. You end up immersed in real life, in hobbies and in the people you care about, and genuinely excited about it.

People who cut their screen time significantly find the energy and focus for things they didn’t think were possible. The same can happen to you.

Havard Mela is an author, coach and digital minimalist. You can check out his website here.

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